


Always Tomorrow

by HalfshellVenus



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Community: prisonbreak100, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-01
Updated: 2006-11-01
Packaged: 2019-03-17 06:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13653291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfshellVenus/pseuds/HalfshellVenus
Summary: Pre-Series.Good intentions alone are not enough.





	Always Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](https://prisonbreak100.livejournal.com/profile)[prisonbreak100](https://prisonbreak100.livejournal.com/), where I have the Gen pairing of Lincoln and Michael. This is for prompt [#20](https://www.livejournal.com/rsearch/?tags=%2320), “Colorless.”

x-x-x-x-x

Tomorrow would be different.

This was the vow Lincoln made to himself.

He would try harder, act more responsible. He’d be at work on time, and come home when the day was over.

He would not get fed up with the little things, not with the crew boss’ attitude or with Michael’s questions. He would be there for his brother, emotionally as well as financially.

And above all, he would resist the temptation to give in to alcohol or drugs.

But in the end, his tomorrow wasn’t different _enough_.

All the frustrations came back so quickly. Maybe he was short-tempered… but then maybe other people were just jerks. It was such a _battle_ every day, dealing with their whining and their demands, and half the time what they wanted would be cancelled out by the next thing they asked for two hours later.

All the days ran into each other— an elongation of blandness broken by irritation. There was no future on the horizon. He lived in an endless repetition of the same flattened-out, colorless day.

By the time the worksite closed down, Lincoln was worn-out and restless all at once.

He was edgy and disgusted with his job, and he was bored with every facet of being alive. Nothing but back-breaking, dull routine for the sake of a paycheck. And at home all that waited for him were the accusations in Michael’s eyes.

When Rod Forbes suggested a ride to the lakeshore, Lincoln took it. Any thoughts of consequences and promises had already slipped away.

They sat at the edge of the water, a flyspeck of acid dissolving on their tongues. Lincoln leaned back on his arms and enjoyed the mounting haze, the washing away of all the dull gray _sameness_ that defined his entire life.

The waves took on colors, and the air vibrated at the edges of everything he saw. He let it take him, let it transform him on a journey toward welcome escape.

Today was already gone, but tomorrow would be different, his mind whispered inside itself.

He summoned the promise again in a mantra of _Then_ as he drifted to where there was only ever _Now_.

 

_\------ fin ------_

 


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